When will self-driving cars finally hit the road in strength? That is a question that can have many answers. Some say that they wont here here for a decade yet while others, are talking about getting them on the road within a couple of years. GM could be among the latter as rumors purporting that the vehicle manufacturer will launch thousands of autonomous cars through Lyft as early as next year, have surfaced.
As per Reuters, GM could field thousands of autonomous vehicles in conjunction with Lyft as early as next year. The vehicles will be based on the Chevrolet Bolt platform and would be deployed for ride-hailing purposes. What is interesting, is the fact that the report still calls the fleet as “test fleet”. So that could mean that GM will launch the vehicles in a limited manner. For example, Lyft could use them in a couple of states and ensure that they are working properly before moving on to expand them everywhere.
Meanwhile, GM has always been saying that it plans to launch its autonomous car sooner than anyone expects. The company has already been testing Bolt-EVs (that belong to GM owned cruise) in city streets in San Francisco and Arizona. The last we heard, the company was planning to expand the vehicles to Michigan roads as well.
GM and Lyft have always had a partnership with each other, and the two have been planning to launch self-driving vehicles for quite a while. They are not alone however. Lyft’s arch-rival Uber is also hatching plans to do something of the sort. The cab aggregator has already announced a partnership with Daimler. However, Uber’s approach is more expansive.
It has created a self-driving vehicle platform, which is open to all OEMs. Manufacturers will be able to use Uber’s platform to operate fleets of autonomous cars. While details have not been made public yet, it is probably safe to assume that both Uber and the manufacturer will share the profits. And since the cars are autonomous, it is also safe to assume that there will be more profits to go around.
